Skill-building games

Section outline

• Select section About

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  About

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  Your progress

  
  

  Have a bit of fun learning and practicing useful hunting, bushcraft, game animal management and ecosystem knowledge and skills.
• Select section Hunting and tracking

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  Hunting and tracking

  
  

  Make sure you know your poos, hooves and what moves when you're out in the field.

  • Select activity Whose poos? (identify and age droppings)

    

    Whose poos? (identify and age droppings) SCORM package

    Completion

    Students must

    

    Pass the activity

    10min

    Guess which animal left which droppings when, and compare your assessments to experts.  
  • Select activity Whose hooves? (identify species from prints)

    

    Whose hooves? (identify species from prints) SCORM package

    Completion

    Students must

    

    Pass the activity

    10min

    Identify the prints and their ages. This can help you find fresh sign.  
  • Select activity Accurately assessing animal sign is an excellent h...

    Accurately assessing animal sign is an excellent hunting skill you'll continue to hone throughout your hunting career. Master trackers can infer all kinds of animal properties like age, weight, diet and condition. See more sign in our animal sign gallery.

• Select section Game animal management

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  Game animal management

  
  

  Hunting with a game animal management lens is critical for the future of hunting in New Zealand. 

  • Select activity Ageing trophy animalsNo-one can shoot a great stag...

    Ageing trophy animals

    No-one can shoot a great stag if we keep shooting good stags! Leaving immature and juvenile stags (and other species' trophy males) until they've reached their full potential is something all hunters should consider, particularly in areas with great trophy potential.
    
    Our stag aging games may help you estimate the maturity of different stags. If you see a male that's not fully mature yet, please consider leaving him! And if you're after meat, target a female instead. 
    
  • Select activity Age Sika Stags

    

    Age Sika Stags SCORM package

    Completion

    Students must

    

    Pass the activity

    5min

    Identify the older stags worth taking and those you should consider leaving to reach their potential.
  • Select activity Age Red Stags

    

    Age Red Stags SCORM package

    Completion

    Students must

    

    Pass the activity

    5min

    Identify the older stags worth taking and those you should consider leaving to reach their potential.
  • Select activity Who goes deer? Deer species identification

    

    Who goes deer? Deer species identification SCORM package

    Completion

    Students must

    

    Pass the activity

    10min

    Identify species of wild deer in New Zealand.
  • Select activity Guess pig weights

    

    Guess pig weights SCORM package

    Completion

    Students must

    

    Pass the activity

    10min

    See how good you are at estimating the weight of wild pigs from photos around New Zealand.  
• Select section Biodiversity and ecosystems

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  Biodiversity and ecosystems

  

  None of us are just hunters. We love the outdoors! Learn more about our biodiversity with these games and resources. 

  • Select activity Name the plant (Plant identification)

    

    Name the plant (Plant identification) SCORM package

    Completion

    Students must

    

    Pass the activity

    10min

    Learn what plants game animals prefer to eat, those they don't, and what that can tell you about animal presence and environmental health.
    
  • Select activity DOC: Identifying ten common NZ forest birds

    

    DOC: Identifying ten common NZ forest birds URL

    Completion

    Students must

    

    View

    1hr 40min!

    External course. (DOC) Listen and learn about 10 common forest birds, and test your identification skills.

    The NZ Garden Bird Survey also has a good bird identification resource.

• Select section Acknowledgement and contribution

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  Acknowledgement and contribution

  • Select activity {alert secondary}Light coverage open to your input...

    Light coverage open to your input
    Some of these games touch on topics of hunter interest that we have yet to cover in depth (e.g. NZ game species or advanced tracking). These games do not represent a final or ideal treatment of these topics, but may scratch a bit of the itch while we continue platform development.
    
    Not all identification photos have been studiously reviewed by hunting experts, and community-sourced identifications can have errors. If you see something wrong/you disagree with the assessment of, please let us know so we can continue to improve these resources.

  • Select activity ...

    

    Without community photography and identifications sourced from iNaturalist NZ-Mātaki Taiao, many of these games wouldn't have been possible. iNaturalist is a citizen science and community-based monitoring platform where anybody can contribute observations.

    iNaturalists can ID plants, droppings or tracks you upload, and your observations can help others.
    
    Hunter observations are highly valued, as we get places few others travel. Consider contributing to this growing community knowledge base.